Stories/The Expedition
Plot A month in space heading towards a gravitation anomaly believed to be a black hole near the edge of the solar system has led to the crew of the USS Explorer having become quite... bored. Soon however, things start going wrong aboard the ship, all escalating to an encounter with a cosmic entity that could threaten them all... Cast ♠ - denotes a character's first appearance. ♦ - denotes a cameo, minor appearance, or mention only. ♣ - denotes a character's final appearance. * Vivian ♠ * Adrian ♠ * Isaiah ♠ * Valeria ♠ * Sargent Gillian ♠ * Vicki ♠ * Drake ♠ * Singularis ♠ Story USS Explorer. Day... Vicki what day are we on? Oh ok. Day 28. Things are still a bit sh*tty as usual. Drake spends most of her time asleep now, and she said something about waking him up when something interesting happens. So far, that's been Isaiah beating Gillian in chess. We should be reaching the black hole in a couple of hours, and then it's the long journey back. END LOG. Adrian finishes the log. * Vicki: You forgot to say start log. * Adrian: No I didn't. * Vicki: Yeah, you did. Replay the recording. Adrian replays the recording. Vicki smiles. * Vicki: See? No start log! * Adrian: Yeah, alright, you win. What are the others up to? The two begin heading to the lounge. * Vicki: Isaiah just challenged Gillian to see if they spot the black hole beforehand. * Adrian: That's bound to go somewhere. They reach a sliding door, which slides open to see Gillian strangling Isaiah, his arms flailing around like a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man, while Valeria is asleep on the couch, a baseball cap over her eyes, and totally oblivious to the fight. * Isiah: ADRIAN HELP, I'M BEING OPPRESSED! * Adrian: What the f- * Isiah: ADRIAN, MY LIFE IS FLASHING BEFORE MY EYES! Vicki forcefully splits the two up. * Adrian: Jesus Christ! What the hell happened? Valeria finally wakes up at this point. * Valeria: Yo ... like what's happening ... * Adrian: Why are these two trying to murder each other...? * Valeria: Oh... yeah... these two were trying to spot the black hole, so then like Isaiah saw it first, so he made a joke about it being Gillian's mom or something. Adrian stares in disbelief, Vicki just fist bumps Isiah. * Adrian: Is this what we're really fighting about now? Mom jokes? Grow the hell up already Gillian, you're in the military for Christ's sake! * Vicki: Hey, is that the black hole? They all look to see the pulsing object ahead of them. It's pulsing almost seemed rhythmic to them, a vortex of gravity which sucked up all matter like some greedy dragon. * Vicki: Woahhh... * Valeria: That's like, so cool. * Vicki: So, what were we doing again? Gillian loads up a list of tasks in the event that the anomaly was a black hole, which it is. * Gillian: Let's see here... Drop something large in to observe the effects... Monitor it's activity... He continues to read out the list of tasks. Vicki leans over to Isaiah. * Vicki: Whispers Wanna see how many things I can hold with my tentacles? * Isaiah: Hell yeah. * Gillian: Isaiah, what was one of the tasks? * Isaiah: Throw a nuke into the black hole? Gillian looks at the list. Use a tactical nuclear device on the Black hole is on there. He gives Isaiah a dirty look. * Gillian: Hmph... * Adrian: Then there's the journey back... * Valeria: Have you like, been dreading it all month? * Adrian: Yes! It'll be all this REDACTED again on repeat! * Vicki: Hey, he's got a point. * Gillian: Listen, once we get to the black hole, it'll only be for a day or so, alright? Once we run all the tests, we can pack it up and head back in about a few hours. An hour later... The rest excluding Adrian are seeing how many objects Vicki can hold in her tentacles. Currently holding a huge menagerie of items, including toilet paper, apples, several deodorant cans, basically most of the supplies. * Gillian: Hey, we're in close enough. Someone go wake up Drake. Vicki sonic dashes off. * Adrian: Don't prank him! *He yells, but its unlikely Vicki heard him.'' A minute or so later, a god-awful scream echoes through the ship. Not long after, Vicki rushes out chased by Drake. * Adrian: What did you do? * Vicki: I poured water on him, obviously. * Drake: You had to wake me up like that though? What even is it? * Adrian: We are at the black hole, Drake. You would know if you used your brain. The USS Explorer approaches the black hole. It almost reminded Adrian of water being drained into a sink, a hole in the universe. Glowing a fiery orange-ish red and pulsing intensely, this was what they'd been working towards for the past month. * Valeria: It looks kinda like, small. * Drake: Great, we've seen the black hole, can we go now? * Vicki: No, you big idiot, we gotta run some tests now, don't we Gillian? * Gillian: Yep. Guess we better begin, then. Vicki begins loading up the monitoring system. * Vicki: Spinning at a speed of 200,000 miles per hour. * Valeria: Wow, that's fast. * Vicki: Denser than Adrian on a bad day... * Adrian: Huh? * Vicki: Now let's throw the nuke into it! * Gillian: No, we're not actually throwing a nuke into the black hole. * Isaiah: Wait, then why did you say I- Gillian turns up the dials on something. * Gillian: We're bombarding the black hole with these frequencies, to test how it reacts to the them. Were at Level 1. * Adrian: So you're saying there's higher levels...? Gillian turns it up to level 3. * Vicki: Bit of a jump...? * Gillian: Isaiah! You're getting the readings, right? Isaiah is looking blankly at the readings. * Isaiah: Yeah, definitely. * Gillian: Okay, lets try level 5- * Isaiah: Guys? The ship's detecting something big in the centre of the black hole. Suddenly, the black hole begins to pulse and shake rather violently, before a huge mass of energy is erupted from it's centre, like a volcano erupting. * Adrian: Jesus Christ! Trough the churning clouds of matter spinning around the event horizon, a huge black hand emerges from the funneling vortex of the black hole, another hand pulls the rest of the creature out of the black hole. * Gillian: What the hell? * Valeria: Holy crap! The entity is a huge humanoid which is black in colour, glowing pinky-red which long hair. Each finger is long and sharp, and it's eyes are fiery red-pink. The entity glares at the USS Explorer, as it begins to pull itself further towards the black hole in order to reach them. * Drake: I don't think she's happy we're here. Think we woke her? * Vicki: That's not the point! * Valeria: I think she's like, really mad at us. The entity's begins to brightly glow, as electricity jumps across it's body. * Vicki: Is it gonna explode? * Isaiah: No... that's an EMP pulse. * Adrian: EMP PULSE? Get us outta here! The entity releases a huge EMP pulse. Before the ship can get away, the pulse ripples through the ship, shutting off electricity within the ship. * Valeria: We've like, lost power! * Gillian: What do we do? * Drake: I can reboot the system. You guys have to keep this thing distracted otherwise it'll rake the ship apart * Adrian: Valeria! Isaiah! Vicki! Get to the fighter jets! * Isaiah, Valeria, Vicki: Got it! ''The three of them rush to their fighters. * Vicki: What's the password? * Isaiah: There's no password, just scan your finger on the thing! The three of them rush to their jets. * Vicki: Which one's mine? * Valeria: Just like, get to one Vicki! As the entity attempts to reach out to grab the USS Explorer, the three fighter jets detach from the Explorer and head towards the entity. As they fly towards the entity, Vicki's jet fires a pair of missiles towards the entity, which strike the entity in the chest and creates a large explosion. As the entity shows visible pain towards the attack, the other jets fire off their missiles, bombarding the entity with explosions. As the entity recoils, it attempts to swat them with it's huge hands before both of it's eyes fire huge pink laser beams, narrowly missing Vicki's ship. Meanwhile, Adrian and Drake get to the main hub. They switch the ship to manual drive. * Adrian: Drake! Reverse engines! FULL POWER! Drake begins to reverse the USS Explorer's engines as the fighters continue to distract the entity. * Vicki: On the radio How long do we gotta keep this up? * Adrian: Once we get far enough away from this thing! Keep it up! The jets continue to fire upon the entity, which tries it's best to destroy the jets. * Isaiah: Guys, I don't think things backing off anytime soo- The entity smashes Isaiah's jet, the debris begins to float off into space. * Vicki: NO! * Adrian: God dammit! HOW MUCH FURTHER DO WE HAVE? * Drake: We need another 5-10 minutes! * Vicki: Well, FIRE THE NUKE! * Adrian: Vicki? Why would we- * Vicki: FIRE THE NUKE! IT'LL GIVE US TIME! Adrian sighs, with his hand half over his face. He grudgingly pulls the latch. As the nuke is pointed towards the entity, Vicki and Valeria continues to open fire on it. * Vicki: ARHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! * Adrian: Listen! You two gotta get outta there in three minutes, we're about to light this place up! Three minutes pass, and the nuke is fired, aimed directly at the '' * Adrian: Vicki! Valeria get outta there! ''The two remaining jets begin to head towards the ship, but suddenly Valeria's ship is caught by the entity's hand. It brings her jet towards it's massive eye. It eyes her with both anger, and perhaps curiosity. The eye fires a glowing aura around Valeria's ship. Valeria spasms for a second before slumping over. * Vicki: The thing has Valeria's ship! She speeds toward the entity, still holding onto Valeria's ship. She fires at its hand, attempting to get it to let go. Its head turns to look at her, before it seems let go, tossing and letting her ship float in the vacuum. * Vicki: It... let go. Suddenly a huge explosion erupts from the entity, consuming it in a fiery explosion. The nuclear missile had hit its mark. Vicki, releasing her trajectory with the fire cloud, does a sharp 90 degree turn and heads toward the ship. Meanwhile, Valeria finally wakes up, and seeing the fire cloud, she puts the ship into reverse. Adrian and Drake catch up to see Vicki and Valeria chased by the burning cloud. * Adrian: VICKI! VALERIA! YOU GOTTA GET OUTTA THERE! ''As the blast begins to catch up with Vicki, she begins to accelerate more and more. * Vicki: OPEN THE HANGAR BAY! Drake rushes toward the door leading to the hangar bay. He enters his ID Card and opens up into the bay. He presses a button, and the hangar door begins to open. As it opens, the air begins to get sucked out like a vaccum. As the nuclear blast begins to approach, Vicki accelerates to her fastest speed. * Adrian: YOU'RE GOING TOO FAST! * Vicki: I GOT THIS! Vicki turns the fighter sideways, and slides into the hangar, crashing with an extraordinary crash. As Drake begins to close the hangar door, the blast begins to close in. Adrian reaches Drake at this moment as well. * Adrian: CLOSE THE DOOR! The hangar door closes just as the blast collides with the ship. Adrian and Gillian rush out to meet them. Adrian rushes over to the crashed jet, and checks on the injured Vicki. She opens the cockpit, and pulls Vicki out of the rubble. * Adrian: Vicki, you okay? * Vicki: I'm... okay. I think some of my bones are broken... The two tightly hug. * Gillian: Mission Control won't be able to reach us. We'll have to head back home ourselves. Adrian turns to face him. * Adrian: Drake, check on any damage the blast did to the ship, as for us, we... better alert mission control of our losses. * Drake: Wait, what's that? The crew look out of the window, and can see the charred remains of Valeria's ship out in the cold. But Valeria's still there, seemingly unharmed. She may be still alive. * Vicki: What the- * Adrian: She's not alive, is she? * Gillian: We don't know, but if she is, we gotta hurry up or she'll freeze to death! * Adrian: Well, what do we do? Adrian suddenly notices the charred ship's moving towards them. Valeria's awake, holding her breath as best as she can. * Adrian: Okay! Open the hangar bay! * Gillian: Again!? Gillian literally punches the button. It slowly opens, and Valeria's ship flies through, skidding across the ground as Gillian presses down again. The door closes and the rest of the crew rush up to the charred ship. Gillian manages to pull Valeria from her cockpit. * Adrian: Get her to the medical bay pronto! Gillian and Drake carry off. Vicki and Adrian observe the damaged ships. * Vicki: ... Now what? * Adrian: Guess we have to head back, now. Time Skip. Valeria is back on Earth, under critical condition having been in a coma for the past two weeks. The time is now 11:30 AM, and the lights are out for Valeria. Suddenly, her heart beat flatlines. Not long after, Valeria slowly suddenly gets up. Her eyes open, revealing they are now solid black. The right eye lights up into a pink glow. (END) Category:Stories by ItzXenos Category:IaLR: Encounters with the Unknown Category:Solo stories